


Prelude

by heartspin



Series: Hearts of a Different Time [1]
Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Depression, F/M, M/M, Moving On, Retelling, Sad, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:07:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23709637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartspin/pseuds/heartspin
Summary: This is a prequel to a story I wish to write. I had to get it off my chest though, as for playing the FF7 Remake brought back the memories and fondness over my favorite FF7 couples. Do not read this is you have not played the original and don't want spoilers!Also I wasn't exactly happy with this version- I had written another straight onto AO3 but my cat, the lovely bastard, booped my touchscreen and closed it out- thus loosing all the original work which I had found far superior. I may come back and rewrite this when I am not so jaded. But I had to get this out and off my chest, as I said, and wish to hear what all of you think as well. -----------Cloud has to come to terms with life as it is, how to sort out his feelings so he can finally move on. But how to do so, in the world that has become so peaceful and moved on from war and fear where it is as if that is all he ever knew, and he doesn't know how to move on.Tifa makes a suggestion and Barret and friends support it whole-heartedly. She just wonders if it was due to her stupid meddling, that this all happened, and if so she just wished she could take it all back and be there for her friend when he needed her most.
Relationships: Tifa Lockhart/Rude, Zack Fair/Aerith Gainsborough, Zack Fair/Cloud Strife, zack fair/cloud strife hinted
Series: Hearts of a Different Time [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1707589
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	Prelude

Prelude

“I believe writing could help you,” the man paused looking up from his notebook in which he had been hunched over in his recliner only to notice the younger blonds attention was no longer with the conversation, but gazing out the window where the blaring sun shown through unhindered glistening off blond hair and pale skin.

Sighing the man took off his glasses and set them with the notebook and pen onto the small table to his left.

“Cloud.”

The mako eyes blinked, pulling from whatever thoughts they had been lost in. Turning his attention to the older man Cloud said nothing.

“Do you know why it is I begged you so to come to me today?”

Dusty lips set in a thin line and Cloud nodded. It was normally very difficult to get the young man to speak at all, so the elder took no offence.

“Tell me then.”

The mans mouth opened, closed, and then he shrugged looking down to the floor,” Tifa.”

The elder, Dr. Christopher, nodded running a weathered hand spotted by days that spoke of being in the sun through blond hair made platinum with age,” and the others.”

Clouds gaze pulled back to him wonder lightening the emptiness for only a fraction of a second,” Others? What others?”

“Lets just say,”Dr. Christopher huffed a smile pulling at one edge of his mouth,” that having some heart to heart with Barretts right hand is enough to leave it at that when it comes to the list. But I promise you there are plenty.”

Dr Christopher saw Cloud digest this information before weaving his fingers together and setting his elbows to his knees so he could better look up into the downcast gaze.

“Cloud. You have so many people who care for you. Love you in fact. Cloud, my boy, I will admit I am one of them. Over the years I have grown to know you I have seen you hold in so much feeling, so much hurt. Dear boy I will say this now, your friends are worried. I. am. Worried. For you.”

Cloud locked eyes with the kind green ones, which brought to memory another pair of green eyes. So young and full of life. Areith.

It was too painful, so he turned his gaze away.

“I feel nothing,” he wished it where true, he wished he where as empty as his voice, as devoid of emotion as his expressionless face let on. 

At first, as a child he recalled feeling numb at the loss of his father. Then he had receded into himself at the bullying the children and judging eyes of the adults before Tifa had pulled him out of his shell, even if it was just a bit. Later he would join SHINRAs SOLDIER program and find that showing emotions or speaking up brought much unwanted attention. He had found it hard to open up before, and the SOLDIER program all but crumbled what little voice he had. He became just another pawn in a helmet with a gun.

And then . . .

He could sense the heavy gaze that Dr. Christopher laid on him and drove his gaze back out the windowpane. To gaze at what exactly? He was unsure. The sprawl of uneven run-down homes stacked against one another in a mash of wood and steel, all muted grays and rust, but the untouched ground held life. Green sprouted in every nook and cranny it could, life sprawling up the once dead city.

“We both know that is not the truth,” the doctor finally retorted but sat back, stroking a well shaven beard,” Which is why I ask you to do this one thing for us Cloud. Write it down. Even if it is a just a- a word of phrase. It could help the words later to come if you ever feel you wish you could share this with someone. But at times paper itself is the only one you need to share it with.”

The older man was standing cracking his neck as he did so,” Try that and perhaps next week we can try and speak Cloud.”

“And you think that really works?” Clouds hand twitched for a sword that was not there, for a battle that was too few in this newer more peaceful world. That was one thing he knew how to do, now, was fight. But with peace there came little of it, and with everyone seeming to move on with their lives aside from him, he found himself lacking direction.

The mans eyes crinkled as he smiled to the younger and patted his shoulder as he passed the other to the exit,” I know I have told you I once worked for Shinra, for SOLDIR. It was what I told many after they became hardened after battle. There sometimes are few words you can use to begin to express to others before you are able to express them to yourself. I will say this, Cloud, words are things of power. They, if strewn together correctly, can invoke the most powerful of magic- even more powerful of that known from materia. Some even think it is certain word that pulls materia from the life force and gives it shape, embodies with it magic."

Cloud was left with the promise of a meeting in a weeks time, and the silence of the room bathed in the evening sun.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Clouds apartment was simple. A simple room that housed a bed, a battered small couch facing an empty table that faced no television, a meager kitchen area with dining seating for 2, and a bathroom adjacent. It was devoid of personality and decor, aside for his various swords in a few of the corners, one laying over the dining table for he had been in the middle of cleaning it and an array of photos over the wall that the dining table sat up against and when Cloud entered he stood for a moment looking at them.

Tifa had been the first to insist on putting them up years before. Various others that had grown to be friends had found it to be a great idea and so, years later, the wall was full. There where a few picture Marlene and Denzel had drawn when younger after Denzel had been cured, there where old pictures- very old- of he and Tifa when they where children and of Clouds mother, a couple of various parts of AVALANCHE in the days when their goals where to blow SHINRA reactors- Jesse, Barret, Tifa, Marlene, a hugging Wedge and Biggs, a playfully smiling youthful Jessie. Oh Jessie. A vice griped his heart tight and quick, before letting go just as fast.

There where even pictures Cloud blinked at he was surprised had even been captured and some that he where rather fond of.

Vincent with his arm crossed grinning widely at a mischievous Yuffie and Kait Seith, both who seemed to be caught in trying to escape a yelling Cid. Cloud couldn’t remember what they had done but recalled the memory fondly. He had been standing somewhere by the door not captured in the photo, but had been enjoying watching the others, heart at ease for the moment.

He felt his lips twitch at the picture of Tifa and her now husband Rude. From an outsider’s perspective they couldn’t be more different, but Tifa’s flair and Rudes good humor balanced each other out, and eventually spun them into a romance tighter than anyone could dream of. Cloud had admitted to himself it hurt, a little, to lose that sort of love from Tifa, though he knew he was undeserving. He had puppy love for Tifa, she was his first love from when they where children, and when reunited the only survivors of their hometown. They had clung to each other. Now years later he was at peace with it, and happy to see his best friend married to the love of her life.

He sighed, feelings bubbling up unwanted and, like normal he didn’t know what to name them, or how to direct them. It generally led to frustration and then him going to a training ground, running, or work.

But he recalled the doctors request and, giving himself a deep breath to try and calm himself, he grabbed a notebook and pen he had for work, flipped open to a blank page and sat at the table.

For a long time, he sat, staring blankly at the lined pages before. He sighed a little, and threw the pen down watching as it rolled across the floor.

Anger flared and died, no direction or real reason for it to be.

“Write huh.”

He snatched the pen up, and with notebook in one hand and pen in other he took the several paces it took to arrive at his bed before throwing himself to it huffing a sigh of exhaustion, though he had no reason to be tired he suddenly felt he was. So holding the notebook above him to eye the blank page again wearily as it mocked him his hand became heavy and he slowly draped his arm across his eyes, before he felt himself drifting off into sleep.

“. . . We’re friends, right?”

Cloud jerked awake, a feeling that comes of an un-known amount of time passing when you had fallen into a sudden deep slumber, and he found himself sweating and breathing heavy.

“Z-zack?”

He knew he had mostly been ‘cured’ after the fall of Sephiroth, when he had been pulled from the life stream and could remember himself, to truly remember Zack. To recall all their times together, of Zack being there for him every time he fell, for being there when Cloud failed the SOLDIER program and became an MP, for helping put in a good word so Cloud could go to Nibelheim, for being there for Cloud for 4 long years together, caged, sometimes bound, but tortured together none the less as the two held onto each other until one day escaping.

For a year they were on the run, Cloud comatose, as Zack did nothing but talk to Cloud in the vein hope the boy would come back to him. Cloud unwilling to accept the death of the person who had been there for him for years in every bad moment, in every dark time, being dead he wiped the raven haired man from his memory, and lived his life until that faithful day in the life stream.

But that was then, and this was now, and Cloud knew Zack was not here. He wouldn’t allow himself to think otherwise.

Closing his eyes and relaxing he slumped his shoulders where he sat on his bead and put his hand through his hair before setting it down next to him only to encounter something. Looking over he saw the notebook.

He blinked and then felt an urge, a feeling that was becoming an energy and a word he couldn’t say aloud but lay in his mind.

Scrambling he searched frantically for the pen, the damn pen that had been in his hand when he had dozed.

Finding it after tearing his bedsheets apart, breathing hard, he put the pen on the paper and paused.

What was it he wanted to write? Was it a feeling? A memory? A wish?

In rough uneven letters at the top he wrote

“Zack.”

He stopped, feeling sick.

Was this okay? It felt wrong. Or maybe just not completely right.

He looked up his eyes stinging oddly he spoke around the rock in his throat, the tightness in his chest.

“There was so much I wanted to say.”

No one responded and he felt a hot tear roll its way down his cheek,” I heard . . .everything. That whole year I listened. I wanted to say, I wanted. . . “

He choaked and closed his eyes tight, two more hot tears rolling down far easier than their predecessor .

In his chest his heart hammered as if he where in a battle, and he supposed in a way he was. It was a battle that had been building up for years, perhaps even before Nibelheim, words that no one had spoken and feelings Cloud had refused to address. Now he wished he could.

The echo of the doctors voice in his ears came “ There sometimes are few words you can use to begin to express to others before you are able to express them to yourself.”

Cloud silently prayed, he never prayed but at this moment he did in hopes of finding an answer, and put the pen to paper once again.

“No more running.”

‘Tomorrow’

He stopped. Scratched it out.

‘yesterday’

Again. A pause and again he scratched the word out. They seemed as if they where words he wanted to use, but he wasn’t using them correctly. Like wielding materia for the first time and expecting it to just do the work for you.

He closed his eyes again, lightly, and breathed. On his ear he swore he heard a huffed laugh, felt the hot breath of the raven haired SOLDIER who would then go to hug him from behind and ruffle his hair and remind him it wasn’t that bad- SOLDIER wasn’t everything and there was always the next testing period. He missed that.

Again the pen went to paper, and his eyes slid open slowly, wishing to hold on to that feeling, that never wavering support from the other.

‘If tomorrow came and I was not here, my own greed and selfishness would permit it.’

He stopped and looked at the words. They felt right.

Standing he walked and looked around gaze going to the pictures of friends, some who had already parished, some who where somewhere unkown, some who where still around. None where of Zack or Aerith.

He closed his eyes, brows stitching together as he felt a soft hand In his own, and a giggle as he envisioned Aerith laughed ahead him, young and full of life.

“Keep going silly! It’s okay- we’re not mad or thinking poorly of you. Keep going!”

“Stop,” he murmured,” It’s not real. Their in your head Cloud.”

But he put the writing pad down on the table, leaning over it heavily before taking another cleansing breath.

‘as for I am unprepared for today, a day in which you called an end.’

Jessie being lost among the others under the crush of the plate in sector 7, Aerith being murdered by Sephiroth, Zack . .

“Zack.”

A rain of bullets. A brush on lips on his brow with the whisper,” stay here buddy. I’ll distract them. Just. . .please. Cloud. Wake up. For me. Wake. Up.”

Cloud grabbed the paper and pen and walked to the door, feeling full of energy, but aware of the sudden lightness in his chest. As if a binding had been taken off, but only a part. He opened the door to observe a mature night, the pregnant moon in the sky and another memory came to him.

“It is all our fate,” Barret was generally very open, very loud and seemingly not one to withhold his thoughts. But these, these thoughts where important, they where his most dear” One day we will all pass, Cloud, and one day we will go back to the life force. I just hope. . .”

The thought, the hope, the fear had drawn the breath from the elder mans chest before he turned to cloud where they had been waiting for fireworks to flair up against the moon,” I just hope that when we do we are not. . .just . . no more ya know? I hope I can see them. . I want to. . .I want to apologize.” He looked to his gun arm, Cloud never asked what had happened and Barret never told,” I want to say all the things I never had the chance to say- ya know? I want to know if he thinks I raised Marlene okay . . .I just. . .Ugh! This is stupid here are the fuckin’ fire works.”

Cloud had not pressed at the time but understood. Whomever Barret spoke of Cloud understood that things had been left unsaid, for no way to recover from. For no way to go back, to write, to call. There was no words to pass to the dead, that would ever be returned or heard.

Leaning against the railing of the apartment he once again wrote.

‘Tomorrow hasn’t arrived, but time still passes. With it I am an unwilling participant, somehow finding myself without you.’

He nodded silently to himself a small smile on his lips as he took a refreshing breath. This. This was what he was working to.

Throwing a leg over his bike he loudly left town, the words floating in his head that he had written. There where more. He knew there where.

Riding on the bike he felt the thrill of the speed as he always did but a part of him almost could feel as if he where no longer driving but riding along with his chest against a broad back the heat of another warming him on a dark night in the dark streets of Midgar.

“Lets turn that frown upside-down blondie! And I have the perfect solution-best plate has to offer!”

Cloud found himself stopped at the edge of a lake, the moon reflecting off. There was a wolf not far off, who glanced at him but gave little other care.

Sitting with his back against a tree, he continued what he fervently now felt he must continue. He wasn’t sure if he was crying due to anger, or pain, or loss. But he wrote, his words now a more messy scrawl from his normal text as we angrily wiped away tears. He felt as if he had little time now, as if when the moon waned and the sun rose the ability to get the words out would be gone.

‘This scar runs so deep, it builds and grows

A mere illusion of stitching the broken pieces back into one.”

He let out an audible weep, a sound that had been trying to make its way past his lips for years, to sound off for those he had lost and hiccuped and the next words he said aloud in a voice that was wrecked and ragged,” I feel that. . . I feel I have always been broken. That maybe, maybe if you break this much, you really can't be fixed. I see you," he swallowed hard," I hear you every day. I know you are not there. It should have been me. It should have never been you- you would have made everything right. You always did. I- I wish I could fix it all."

His blurred vision saw the crest of sun hit the horizon in a sharp line and he closed his eyes, and no longer felt the pain and sadness and loss and longing that was there only a moment before.

He felt, weightless.

And in opening his crusted eyes he groaned rolling over in bed.

“Well how do you expect to make the SOLDIER program if you can’t even manage to wake up on time?”

His eyes peeled open wide at the smiling blue-eyed blond woman who laughed and went back to the kitchen,” Breakfast is nearly ready! You can’t say you wouldn’t spend at least one last breakfast with your boring old mother before going off to become a powerful SOLDIER now would you?”

He breathed heavy and blinked his eyes rapidly as he sat up and Claudia turned, sensing something was wrong with her son.

“Cloud, is everything all right?”

His brows knit together, and he opened his mouth before pausing.

“Yes,” he finally said smiling softly to the woman and she returned his smile waiting for him to continue,” I just. . .I jut had a wild dream, I think. Or horrible nightmare.”

“What was it about darling?”

Cloud frowned before shaking his head,” I can’t remember. But I think someone was writing a letter in it.”

“Well I must say that is an odd thing to remember from a dream.”

“It was an important letter I think…”

Claudia served up the large breakfast as Cloud padded over to the table from where he had actually been sleeping on the couch- that was right he had fallen back asleep after his mother had woke him for breakfast.

“Well,” she said smiling,” better write it down then.”

************************************************************************

In another world, another time, another place, Tifa searched for her friend finding his bike, and near it, under a tree that was large and old overlooking a lake, sat an unknown materia, gray and sparkling with silver dust, that so far none could figure out its use. But that mattered little to Tifa or the others. Cloud was gone, as he had been for over a year now, and it was uncertain if he would ever return. 

Guiltily Tifa clutched a hand to her chest looking to the sky. 

Had it been because of her? Because of her persistence for him to speak about things, to 'get better'? 

Rude drove up their driveway and she felt herself lighten as she smiled and waved, walking away from the yellow lilies that grew in their garden. She loved Cloud, and hoped dearly he someday would return, but Tifa couldn't look behind her forever. There was only so much more ahead before she had nothing more to look forward to, and at the moment she had much to look at.

-=-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-Fin-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-

As I stated in the summery 1: I am not very pleased with the way this is written, though an original always feels best. Love my cat, not his destruction. 2: this is a prequel to a series I plan to write. Please let me know what you think!


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